


Those Who Help Themselves

by Dawnwind



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-18
Updated: 2013-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-12 05:40:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/807928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawnwind/pseuds/Dawnwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doyle's through with waiting, he rescues himself but in the end, he needs a bit of help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those Who Help Themselves

**Author's Note:**

> A sequel to Worth a Thousand Words

Those Who Help Themselves

By Dawnwind

Doyle waited. He didn’t want to, but he had to conserve his energy. The beating had taken a lot out of him, and his left shoulder ached abominably. Damned Volker. 

Listening to the whispered conference in opposite corner of the room between Volker and Reilly, Doyle attempted to untangle the knot that had become his undercover assignment. Seemed simple enough a few days ago—infiltrate the gang, get the goods on the blokes who’d robbed the Bank of England and then report back to CI5. He’d been unhappy to have to go under without Bodie, but it couldn’t be helped. Bodie had known Volker, way back when. Not well, but well enough that Cowley hadn’t wanted to risk his agent being found out.

So instead, Doyle’s identity had been uncovered after only a few days. Bloody hell, what a cock up. He wondered what Bodie was doing—what he’d think when he saw the picture they’d taken. 

Red haired Reilly had pointed a gun at him, amusement on his face. He’d enjoyed having the upper hand after Doyle made him look the fool in front of Volker. 

Already in pain from the vicious drubbing they’d given him, complete with a few knocks using brass knuckles, Doyle had bared his teeth in a snarl. Reilly had chuckled and tossed a newspaper down by Doyle’s knee. The bloody News of the World, of all things!

“Couldn’t spare a couple pence more for the Guardian?” Doyle taunted.

“Look pretty, arsehole,” Volker had called out, holding up a camera. “Wouldn’t want to disappoint your fans, now would you?”

The flashbulb had blinded Doyle and by the time his vision had cleared, Volker and Reilly were gone. But he’d gleaned enough clues to know that his days were numbered. Day, singular because they planned to kill he and Bodie after an exchange on Tower Bridge.

Not going to happen.

Not on Doyle’s watch. Not when he’d been the cause of this crock of shit. 

He hurt, very badly indeed.

He waited a bit more, letting himself drift. It was cold and damp, and he could hear a mournful wail from a foghorn out on the Thames. At least that gave him a bearing of sorts. The foghorn was to his left—with any luck, he was in Nine Elms or possibly Lambeth and not so far away from the centre of London as Greenwich. 

Doyle licked his dry lips, tasting the salty tang of blood. The corner of his mouth stung where he’d reopened a cut with his tongue. He would kill for a drink of water and a handful of paracetamol. Couldn’t be helped. Best to ignore the deep pain in his arm. He was not about to let bumps, bruises and a broken collarbone stop him.

What had his mother always told him as a child? The Lord helps those who help themselves. Can’t wait around for a miracle.

Doyle got himself to his knees and then to a stand with a great deal of swearing and sweat. He swayed, feeling like his head had come away from his neck and his arm was weighing him to the earth. Very unpleasant.

There was no sound from the hall. Doyle put his right hand on the door, surprised when the knob turned easily. Volker had been careless! And not for the first, time, either—which is why CI5 had been onto him. He’d probably assumed that the beating would keep Doyle down. 

_Not bloody likely._

Careful not to raise an alarm, Doyle crept down the stone corridor. Water sloshed under his feet. Shivering hurt something awful. He literally couldn’t shiver and walk at the same time, which slowed his forward movement to a pensioner’s creep.  
He needed to be out of here and in some vehicle with sufficient horsepower to get him across the river and to CI5 long before the proposed meeting on Tower Bridge. 

Volker was going to have to wait for judgment day to see his mate Dobbins out of prison. That murdering sod was in for setting multiple bombs for the IRA.

Doyle froze when he heard voices coming from the far end of a large open warehouse. He could just make out two or three blokes with their backs to him, gathered around a small office set-up. A desk, several chairs and a file cabinet. Volker’s lair, such as it was. The man himself was reading over a pile of papers, his voice a low growl. 

“Kettle’s hot, who’ll have a cuppa?” Reilly called out.

Sounded a treat, but Doyle had other places to be. He kept crates marked with Chinese characters between him and the tea drinkers, eventually making it to a small door.

Sending up a prayer that the hinges didn’t creak and give him away, Doyle realized he’d invoked the God of his childhood more in the last hour than he had in the past twenty years. Strange how old habits returned in times of need.

His mother used to tighten her mouth into a grim line when he’d come home bruised and battered after a brawl—usually one started by bullies who saw a slender, bird-boned lad as a target. They’d learned the hard way that Raymond David Doyle could take on any Goliath and win. 

Just like Volker. He was destined to go fall hard. If only Doyle had a pea shooter.

His mother had been the one he couldn’t fight. She was tough as nails with a faith that kept her strong when her husband beat her. _That’s what men did to the weaker ones. Never you mind, boyo,_ she’d told her son, sending him to confession without any dinner. _Stay strong and wait for opportunity, you’ll find salvation on the last day._

Doyle had never been a patient man. He could rescue himself, thank you very much.

The cold, foggy air off the Thames tasted like freedom. He leaned against the corrugated metal outside wall of the warehouse, breathing hard. Everything ached and he wanted nothing more than to collapse in a heap, spent. 

Keep at it, old son, he lectured himself. One foot in front of another.

Worse luck, there was not a car to be seen behind the warehouse. He gazed out at the dirty river. Numerous skiffs, small fishing boats and a ferry far out in the middle of the water, but nothing that could whisk Doyle to safety.

Except—Alexander Graham Bell’s marvel, the telephone. A lone red box stood at the entrance to the pier. All Doyle needed was a coin to operate it.

Neither Volker or Reilly had cared about what he’d carried in his pockets: they’d been more interested in what he knew about them. Their questions had come in the form of punches and hard, cruel jabs that had broken his skin, but hadn’t unstopped his mouth. He pushed a finger into his jeans pocket and fished out a 10 p coin. Doyle smiled grimly and walked as fast as his tortured body could go.

The temptation to sink to his knees once he closed the glass paned door on the phone box was overwhelming, but he had one more job to do. A single call, his fingers finding the correct numbers on the phone without conscious thought. He waited for the pips, fed the money in and got past the CI5 switchboard. When Doyle finally heard the one voice he’d been longing for, he could have wept.

“Bodie,” Doyle said wearily. “Come get me.”


End file.
